Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I've been reading stories about a particular set of incidents that have been happening at movie theatres in the past couple of weeks (and I suspect in living rooms now too).

It seems that people have been rather intrigued by the trailer for Devil when they first see it... but that soon turns to derision and laughter the moment the name M. Night Shyamalan is revealed. And the kicker is, he didn't even direct the movie, but merely wrote the story it is based upon.

So yeah, Shyamalan is now both a punchline and potentially box office poison. Given some of the stories floating around out there about him, some of this seems fitting.

Then again, I remember back in 2006, I had read an anecdote about the showing of the trailer for Apocalypto, and the audience was really into it. And then Mel Gibson's name appeared and there was a collective groan of disappointment. That movie still made quite a bit of money.

Let's face it, though, if Mel Gibson was trying to open that movie today, I don't think it would have been so much a groan as booing when his name came up.

I wonder if MNS can redeem his own name at some point or if he will now forever be the stuff of derision.